Brotherly Love
by Duilin
Summary: ...is a phrase that should not be uttered. Unless you want Moryo to smile - which I do, trust me.


**This is pretty much crack.  
><strong>**No, I am not on it.**

**If you read 'The Bracelet', I think you'll know that Haru means Grandfather. And by the way, _toron_ means brother.**

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><p><em>I was plunging into the waterfall's pool, and Valar, it was cold. I had a feeling that I was going to get a cold that night. Atar and Ammë didn't even notice me, both lost in their work. Haru was speaking with Carnistir, our newest, and youngest, brother. Maitimo and Makalaurë noticed a bit too late as I had already leaped into the pool, and I was already beneath the water before Ammë screamed, dropping her paint brush, and splattering the red, intended to color the magnificent flowers, over the waterfall's pool. <em>

_I could hear shouting, and it was presumably Maitimo, since Makalaurë, Haru, and Atar would have kept their calm._

_Shapes that I could barely distinguish made their way down to the pool. Slowly and leisurely, I floated towards the opposite end of the pool and stopped when I was behind the waterfall. Carefully, I edged my way towards a rift in the rock behind the water and started to climb, ignoring the water pushing down on me. I could hear Carnistir's delighted laughs I reached the top of the waterfall and pulled myself upward onto the cliff. Then, I dragged my soaking wet and dripping body over to my dear Moryo and Haru, who looked a bit startled at my reappearance as a waterlogged grandson. _

_Atar, Ammë, Nelyo, and Kano were still down at the pool of the waterfall._

_Grinning, I bent down to rub Moryo's cheek with my wet finger, and I asked him, slowly in clear Quneya, "Did you see big brother jump?"_

_He giggled and took my finger in his hand, biting on it. "Yes!" he answered around my finger, and I smiled _

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><p>The paper ended right at 'smiled', though I suspect that the writing didn't. I looked up from the parchment and grinned at Carnistir as he scowled back at me. These were one of the older entry logs that I had written while he was still a child, and I nearly forgot about them until I was ordered by Ammë to clean up the room that I shared with Moryo. I complied, but only because she was with child and I did not want her to strain herself. Other than that, I was perfectly fine with being mothered over.<p>

"What are you grinning at?" he muttered, flipping over a page in his book and rolling his eyes at me.

"Want to read this instead?" I asked, waving the ripped parchment around.

"No."

But I refused to be put down. I snuck over to his side and looked over his shoulder. He was reading a horror story. Figures. Sighing inaudibly, I placed the parchment in front of the page he was reading. "Don't you remember this?" I made sure my voice was loud enough so he couldn't deny hearing me speak.

Out of curiosity, Moryo did glance down. And his eyes narrowed only slightly when he read the last sentence. Wow, that was quick. He just had a lot of practice, being the bookworm that he was...

"I don't remember," he replied.

"Oh come on. It was the time I jumped into the waterfall because you were bored."

"Well, I was probably laughing at you for being stupid enough to do that."

I rolled my eyes. "I know you're secretly hiding your affection for your big brother under your sarcasm. Seriously, Moryo. Show me some love. Some brotherly love."

He marked the page in his book and closed it, turning around to frown at me. "No."

"Why not?"

"I will not show you some 'brotherly love,' because that is just not my type of thing to do. Go ask Curvo, or the Ambarussa, or even Kano. I'm pretty sure Kano would love to hear you say that. If you're lucky, he might even make you a sonnet on how you want brotherly love."

"Moryo. If you don't put down your sarcasm and hug me right now, I will attack you."

"Is that a threat?"

"That's a promise."

He attacked first, swinging out to clout me in the jaw. And then in ten seconds, our entire room was torn down, after I had graciously put so much effort into cleaning it up. He didn't even partake in hoisting our books onto the top shelf of the bookcase. After we finally ended the round by punching each other in the guts, I sat down, wincing, and took out a sheet of parchment, dipping my quill into the inkwell and turning to Moryo. Then, I wrote our names down on opposite sides of the paper and underlined both.

"What injuries do I have?"

"Besides the ones already existent in your mentality?"

"No. I'm talking physical here. As in, black eyes or anything? Because I'm pretty sure you punched my nose, missed, and hit me in the eye."

For the first time today—hell, first time in _weeks_—Moryo grinned at me. "Two black eyes. Sorry to say this, _toron_, but I don't think ladies go for eyes as dark as yours." Seeing my glare, he laughed. "Hey—at least they weren't mismatched."

Growling at him, I lackadaisically wrote down that I had two black eyes. Then I turned to him, glowering. "Anything else?"

"A bruise on your jaw."

"I thought you missed," I protested.

"No, your sensory neurons did," he replied, looking like he was enjoying himself.

"Oh, whatever. What else?"

"Lift up your shirt, and you'll probably see yourself that I left a bruise there."

Complying, I lifted the hem of my shirt and glanced down at my abdomen. And there it was, a purple bruise on my skin, standing out completely. I looked up at Moryo. "You have got to be kidding me. I didn't even feel it."

"Therefore, your sensory neurons missed, as I said before."

My fingers curled up into a fist, but I simply continued to write. "Is that it?"

"Oh, and a split lip."

I nearly broke the quill in half as I wrote that down. "_Now_ is that it?"

"Yes."

Glumly, I checked the list.

Turco  
>black eye (2) - (<em>not funny, Moryo<em>)  
>bruise on left side of jaw<br>purple bruise on abdomen  
>split lip<p>

Then I grinned at him, my momentary despondency gone. "All right. Your turn. We'll see who is better at fighting soon—watch out!"

Our bookcase came crashing down and nearly hit Moryo. He snorted and kicked the thing away, sitting down in the second chair with a grin. "Let's see then. Go ahead—catalogue all my bruises."

"Well, you have two black eyes too, if I have two."

"Hmm. How come?"

"Because my aim doesn't suck as much as yours."

"You're just mad that I had the grace to give you symmetrical injuries."

"So a bruise on the left side of my face—on my _jaw_—is symmetrical?"

"Are you saying you _want_ another bruise on the right side of your face?"

Sighing, I dipped the quill into the inkwell again and started writing again. "A bleeding nose and...a bruise on the right side of your jaw—hmm, we're more symmetrical than I thought... Oh, and lift your shirt up. I bet you I left a bruise there too."

Moryo at least admitted that. "Yeah. My senses actually didn't fail me. I felt it." He lifted his grey tunic up and examined the bruise. "Damn, you punch hard. Maybe you just don't know when your hand is screaming in pain, so you have no idea about self-restraint." He paused for a moment. Then, he added, "Is that it?"

"Yeah. Check the list?"

"Yeah."

Moryo  
>black eye (2)<br>bruise on right side of jaw  
>purple bruise on abdomen<br>bleeding nose

"I think that's it... Unless you want to count the bruises on our heads for banging them against the floor," Moryo told me, staunching the bleeding with his sleeve while I mopped at my split lip.

"We'll still be even. Want to go sport off our battle scars of war?"

He sighed in exasperation. "This wouldn't have even occured if you hadn't have been so creepy and said you wanted 'brotherly love.' I mean, how the hell is one supposed to react to that?" He shook his head at me, but I could see the amusement.

"Giving a hug?" I supplied. "Come on. You looked really bored, reading that book."

"It was a horror story."

"Okay. You're calling me creepy, and you're reading a horror story."

"Let's just go downstairs now."

"Sure."

Together, we walked down the stairs, the disoriented room forgotten. And then, Ammë was the first to spot us from the kitchen. "What happened to you both?" she exclaimed. It drew the attention of everyone else.

Grinning, and wincing when it jarred my jaw, I held up the sheet of parchment. "We had a contest—"

"—or more like I punched Tyelkormo after he said he wanted some 'brotherly love,'" interjected Moryo.

"Then I punched back—"

"And we both ended up almost getting the exact same injuries—"

"And we recorded it—well, _I_ recorded it."

Maitimo sighed at us both. "Both of you have black eyes. How are you going to explain this to Atar? He's due to come back from the council in an hour, and I doubt you'll have any sort of ability to make them vanish before then."

"There's only one thing to do," I said, with all due seriousness.

Moryo turned to me and nodded.

"Show our injuries proudly," we chorused in unison, and grinned at each other.

It felt good being a big brother.

But I was never using the term 'brotherly love' ever again.

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><p><strong>I hope you liked it - I was laughing at myself the entire way.<strong>


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